HBO’s Game of Thrones is about “white-on-white violence,” “white privilege,” and a Trump-like family of ruthless rulers who hide their tax returns and aren’t really worth what they claim to be — at least according to African-American-focused culture website, The Root.
In a Thrones primer, titled “The Black Person’s Guide to Game of Thrones,” The Root staff writer Michael Harriot says the hit series “is basically an all-encompassing analogy for white America and should be studied in the same way seventh-grade English teachers make their students dissect Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies to understand society.”
Harriot provides a Q&A for black people unfamiliar with the fantasy drama and for potential black Thrones enthusiasts that explains “everything you wanted to know about dem Thrones but were afraid to ask.”
“But aren’t there superpowers, dragons and monsters and shit?” Harriot writes, answering “Yes, but the supernatural elements of the show are used as analogies and symbolic metaphors.”
HBO
HBO
The dragons, Harriot notes, stand for “white privilege” and the monsters represent “Wypipo;” [read white people].
The black people on the show, Harriot accurately explains, are “a group of castrated warriors who were once slaves, called the Unsullied.”
The Unsullied, Harriot sarcastically writes, were freed by “White people.”
Yes. A blond lady named Daenerys, who is impervious to fire, was born with the ability to ride dragons and was gifted at birth with dragon eggs that would eventually hatch. Daenerys rode the dragons (or her privilege) to save the slaves. And of course, after she frees them from lives dedicated to fighting in wars for their masters, they decide to spend their lives fighting for her—their “queen”—and help her ride her privilege dragons all the way to the Iron Throne.”
HBO
The award-winning HBO drama also includes “someone like Donald Trump,” Harriot writes:
Yes, they are the Lannisters, the symbol of white privilege. Everyone thinks they’re rich, but they really don’t have any money. However, no one in the Seven Kingdoms has seen their tax returns. They exist mostly by colluding with forces outside Westeros to keep their power by any means necessary. Tiffany Trump is played by Peter Dinklage, who is ostracized by the family. There are also Jamie and Cercei, twins whose lifelong love affair has produced three children who are all dead.
Read Harriot’s Game of Thrones primer for black people here.
The seventh season of Game of Thrones returns to HBO on July 16.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson
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